


He Will Not Break

by Spica88



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: BAMF Ignis Scientia, Beating, Blood and Injury, Blood and Torture, Blood and Violence, Broken Bones, Electrocution, Gun Violence, Hurt Ignis Scientia, Hurt Noctis Lucis Caelum, Hurt/Comfort, Major Character Injury, Other, Trauma, Vomiting, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-04-05
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:21:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 11,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23369158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spica88/pseuds/Spica88
Summary: Noctis is captured and tortured by Ardyn.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 82





	1. Waking up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Noctis wakes up in Ardyn's captivity, unsure of how he got there.

Noctis woke to a dull throbbing in his head. He groaned quietly and immediately snapped his eyes back shut. If Gladio found out he was awake, he’d have him up for sparring practice no matter how ungodly the hour was and he was not having it this morning when his head felt like it was in a vice. Noctis laid still with his eyes closed for a few minutes before he realized he didn’t feel right, despite the headache. Had he gotten drunk last night? What time was it anyway? Surely it was still the middle of the night. He couldn’t see a damn thing. He’d just decided he didn’t care and went to turn over onto his side when he felt his wrist being pulled in the opposite direction as his body rolled over. He instinctively tried to jerk upright into a sitting position only to be stopped by a sharp tug on both wrists. His head whipped back and forth, trying to get a sense of his surroundings but all he could see was darkness.

“Gladio? Ignis? Prompto?” he whispered and his voice cracked and he realized he was extremely thirsty.

Nobody answered him. He started struggling against the restraints and noticed his ankles were trapped as well. He was laying flat on his back on a cold slab, no pillow or blanket, no tent or campfire light and no sleeping bag, just cold concrete and the jeans and tshirt he’d put on yesterday when they decided to drive off with the creepy old guy to the disk of Cauthess…

His memories flooded back to him. They had met the guy only one other time at Galdin Quay, the weird fucker with the top had and trench coat. He’d offered to show them the way to the disk so long as Noctis agreed to ride with him so that he could “make sure he was who he said he was.” Gladio had vehemently objected to Noctis riding with the guy by himself so Ignis agreed to go with them while Gladio and Prompto followed behind them. The place was hidden and heavily guarded if you even managed to find it, so they really had no choice but to take the guy at his word. He had jumped in the back seat, not in the mood for chatter and hoping Ignis would absorb the majority of the conversation. This was the last thing he remembered. What had happened? Did they make it to the disk? Why was he alone? The realization that the old guy…Ardyn…that was his name…must have compromised them sent a wave of panic through him.

 _Shit!_ Noctis thought. _If he has me, he must have Ignis too. But what could he possibly want with us?_

His thoughts were interrupted with a blast of light. Noctis snapped his eyes shut against the abrupt change as it sent a stab of pain through his skull.

“I was beginning to wander if you were ever going to wake up.” A man purred. The voice was distantly familiar, almost seductive and it made Noctis’s skin crawl.

Noctis squinted through the brightness at the man. He was big. Six or seven inches taller than him and probably 80 pounds heavier, with garish, chin length purple hair and dull yellow eyes. He was alone with him in small stone room that resembled a jail cell.

“Where’s Ignis?” Noctis said in as level of a voice as he could manage.

“He’s safe and unharmed. Don’t you worry about him, you and I are going to have a lot of fun together!” Ardyn said and a wicked smile split his face in half.

Ardyn’s assurance that Ignis was safe did little to ease his anxiety. His heart was pounding so hard he was worried Ardyn could hear it. He struggled to breathe normally, Gladio’s voice echoing in his head.

_Never show your enemies weakness or fear!_

Ardyn sauntered over to the slab of a bed that Noctis was chained to and grabbed him by the chin.

“You aren’t planning on being difficult, are you? I’ve sensed a bit of an attitude since the day we met. Not very becoming behavior for a king if you ask me,” he said.

Noctis didn’t say anything but shook his head. If he could comply long enough for Ardyn to unchain him then he’d be able to rip him limb from limb. He was dwarfed by Ardyn’s mass but if he could summon a weapon, he was certain he’d be able to end him. He hadn’t noticed Ardyn carrying any weapons either of the times he’d seen him and Noctis was lethal with a sword at at his best and well above average with the rest of his arsenal.

“What good news!” Ardyn exclaimed. “I was hoping this would be easy. You see, I’ve had a long day and the last thing I wanted to do was argue with you.”

Noctis stayed silent and remained still as Ardyn unlocked the chain around his wrists. It was all he could do to keep from bursting into action before his ankles were unchained. As soon as he felt the restraints fall from his ankles, Noctis jerked into a crouched position on the concrete slab and reached into the armiger for his engine blade, but nothing happened. He gasped and tried again for a lance, a set of daggers, a gun, a spell, anything, but it was like he was trying to reach through a brick wall. Ardyn watched him and laughed. Noctis growled and sprung for him but Ardyn was deceptively quick and caught him by his throat with one hand, holding him up above his head as if he weighed nothing. Noctis grabbed at the hands around his throat and kicked out, trying to find purchase to relieve the pressure crushing his windpipe but Ardyn had him at a full arm’s length and it didn’t even seem like it caused him that much effort. Adryn opened his hand right before Noctis blacked out and let him drop. Noctis landed feet first and the impact jolted up his spine and he crumpled to the floor, choking and struggling to breathe. Ardyn simply stood and observed and the look on his face sent Noctis into a blind rage and he charged at him one more time. Ardyn flashed out of his way and Noctis pivoted around to see him standing on the other side of the room. Though Noctis was far from physically imposing, he was quicker than lightening but apparently Ardyn was faster. Now he wasn’t sure what to do and it was clear from the look on Ardyn’s face that he knew it. One side of his mouth quirked up in a half smile and he blinked across the room again, materializing right beside Noctis. Before he had any time to react, he thrust his knee into the side Noct’s thigh, sending a jolt up pain through the muscle, seizing it and instantly bringing him to the ground before he felt a needle jammed into the side of his neck and everything went black again.

When Noctis woke this time, he found himself in a similar situation, but he was upright and the room was lit. It wasn’t the same room he’d woken up in the first time, but it was similar; cold, empty and stone. He was in the middle of the room, his feet a little more than shoulder width apart and chained to the ground at the ankles and his arms were fully extended above his head and chained by his wrists to the ceiling. He’d hardly had time to take in his surroundings when the single stone door opened and Ardyn strode languidly into the room. Anger overtook fear as Ardyn circled him like a hawk surveying a field mouse, his expression amused.

“What do you want?” Noctis growled.

“I’m here for the financial opportunity,” Ardyn snickered. “Niffelheim is going to pay me a small fortune for you.”

Of course. He should have known all along.

“Well, here I am. What are you still doing here?” Noctis countered, trying as hard as he could to sound brave but fear gripped his chest so tight it was hard to breathe.

“They don’t think Lucis will negotiate for your return unless they have proof of your imminent danger,” Ardyn said.

He was right, they probably wouldn’t. Noctis had only been the technical “king” for about 48 hours. With the uproar that his father’s death was causing, his whereabouts were likely of minimal concern. The last anyone heard, he’d set off with his crowns guard to Altissia. To their knowledge, he was probably as safe as he could be.

“I don’t really get it,” Ardyn explained, looking Noctis up and down like a butcher inspecting a cut of meat. “The obsession with your capture, I mean. You seem clever enough but you’re no physical wonder like your father is...sorry, was…You must take after your mother’s side. It makes me wonder why they would even bother. I would have just left you to the elements with your joke of a crowns guard. Titan would have crushed you like a bug, if you could even have managed to make it that far.”

Noctis furrowed his brow and snarled with fury. Ardyn strode up in front of him and ran a hand through his hair. Noctis jerked his head back from Ardyn’s hand and spat in his face. Noctis saw his face turn red then he whipped forward and head-butted Ardyn as hard as he could, cracking his nose. Ardyn’s head rocked back momentarily but the impact didn’t unbalance him. He looked Noctis dead in the eye, smiled, cracked his nose back into place and snorted blood, splattering his face and shirt with it. Ardyn moved towards him aggressively, eyes blazing, grabbed him by the shoulders and jammed his knee as hard as he could into Noctis’s gut. Noctis coughed and choked, desperately trying to double over to take some of the pressure out of his lungs but the restraints on his wrists and ankles held him steadfastly in place and his vision tunneled as he struggled to breathe. After what felt like a lifetime of gasping and struggling, Noctis finally got his breath back and straightened up again.

“I see this is going to be more difficult than I'd hoped,” Ardyn said. “Maybe your more like your father than I thought. I assumed you be a little bitch like your mother since you look so much like her.”

That did it. Any composure that Noctis had kept throughout this whole ordeal was gone and he started thrashing violently against the chains at his wrists and ankles, growling and screaming profanities and this big fuck who for some reason had nothing better to do than stand here and insult his dead parents.

“Fuck you!” Noctis snarled. “I’ll fucking kill you!” The shackles tore at the skin around his wrists and ankles, sending blood trickling down his arms and into his shoes. He tried to warp out but he couldn’t conjure any magic.

“Such language! What will your country think when they find out what a foul mouth their new king has? Or is that how you always treat your hosts? Your father would be ashamed to find out he raised such a heathen.” Ardyn pulled a small black voice recorder from inside his jacket. “It’s unfortunate he’s not around anymore. I imagine he would react much differently than the rest of Insomnia if he was around to hear your screams.”


	2. Walking on Broken Glass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The torture begins and Noctis tries as hard as he can not to give in to Ardyn's desires.

Ardyn didn’t waste any time trying to bring those screams forth, but Noctis refused to give him the satisfaction.

“I know you must be thinking how tough you are right now. It’s true, you’ve hardly made a sound, but we’re just getting started!” Ardyn exclaimed as he swung the crowbar into Noctis’s side.

He’d swung it harder each time. Noctis stopped counting after five. This time it struck him a few inches under his left armpit, and he heard something inside him crack. He snapped his teeth shut against the scream that tried to claw its way up from the pit of his stomach and managed to stifle it into a low groan at the back of his throat.

“Whoops!” Ardyn laughed. “Did you hear that? It sounded like a rib to me. Let’s have a look. We wouldn’t want it to puncture anything and kill you or I won’t get paid.”

Adryn lifted Noctis’s shirt up and grabbed him by the side and squeezed. Noctis yelped when he felt his bones shift under the pressure and wrenched himself out of Ardyn’s hand.

“Ouch! That must hurt!” Ardyn said with a chuckle. “Try not to worry too much though. The bone didn’t break through the skin. Want to see?”

Ardyn pulled a hand mirror from his jacket pocket and angled it so that Noctis could see his side. He was right, the bone hadn’t broken through but the skin surrounding his ribs was a swollen, angry patchwork of black, blue and purple and busted blood vessels. He looked away quickly because for some reason seeing the extent of the injury amplified the pain. He struggled to breathe slowly through gritted teeth, but it was difficult. Every time his body expanded his side burned intensely which only added to his sense of panic that made his body want to respond with shallow, rapid breaths.

“It seems I’m not getting the reaction out of you that I expected,” Ardyn said. “We need to put on a good show for the citizens of Insomnia if they’re ever going to believe that your life is in jeopardy. I suggest we take a different approach. What do you say?”

Noctis looked him dead in the eye and raised both middle fingers.

“Wonderful idea!” Ardyn exclaimed. “Did you know that you have more nerve endings in your fingertips than anywhere else in your body?”

Bile flooded Noctis’s mouth and he swallowed hard but remained silent

“I asked you a question!” Adryn yelled. “Did you know?” he screamed and punched Noctis hard in his left side. The pain was blinding and Noctis couldn’t help the gasp that came from him, followed by a low whine that caught in his throat while he struggled to take shaky breaths.

“Yes,” He said in a voice that was somewhere between a gasp and a whisper.

“That’s good!” Ardyn said. “It’s always better to know what you’re in for so you can prepare.” He pulled a glass pint of liquor out of his pocket, took several large gulps then dropped the bottle to the floor, where it shattered into razor sharp shards. He knelt and removed five long and particularly brutal looking shards from the mess on the floor. He sauntered to Noctis right side and he reflexively curled his fingers into his palms to make a tight fist.

“Open your hand,” Ardyn said flatly. “Or I’ll break your fingers.”

His heart was pounding fast, and his breath came in rapid hitches. His hand shook as he tried to relax his fingers. It went against every instinct he had to comply with Ardyn’s demand, but he supposed glass shards shoved under his fingernails would probably be worse with broken fingers.

“Here, let me help you. You seem to be having trouble,” Ardyn said, grabbing him by the wrists and pressing hard into the pressure point between his bones. The pain caused him to groan and his palm opened limply.

“We’ll start with this one, since it seems to be your favorite,” Ardyn said as he grabbed Noctis’s middle finger and shoved the glass spike under his nail. The pain was worse than he’d expected, and he’d expected it to be unbearable at best. His arm jerked reflexively, trying to pull away from the pain that exploded from his fingertip and shot all the way up the nerve to his elbow but his wrist was still held in place by the metal cuff and it did no good. He didn’t scream but his resolve was cracking quickly. He made a sound that was half whine and half growl into his teeth. Ardyn didn’t waste any time before he had a hold of his index finger and another glass spike.

“Wait!”, Noctis said and tried to close his hand but Ardyn snapped his finger before he could and shoved a second shard under his nail. He was right, it was definitely worse on a broken finger. His knees buckled and he moaned, loudly this time and threw up. His head hung and tears ran from the tip of his nose while Ardyn grabbed him by the chin to pull his face up and looked him in the eye. Noctis’s pupils were blown wide and his eyes were unfocused. Ardyn let go of his chin and slapped him so hard across the face that his vision whited out..

“I told you I’d break your fingers. Don’t do that again,” Ardyn said as he took his ring finger and shoved a shard of glass under the nail.

He cried out this time, not quite a scream but it was the most noise he’d made so far and he hated himself for it. His fingers had been busted with practice weapons plenty of times. He’d even cracked some ribs, broken his collar bone, and had the wind knocked out of him more times than he could count but being strung up like this and unable to curl in on himself was amplifying everything. Also, that had been training. He’d gotten busted up sparring with Ignis and Gladio but they’d never been actively trying to hurt him. This man was. He was trying everything he could to hurt him and that made everything so much worse. There would be no hot shower or soft bed at the end of this day. There wouldn’t be bandages or asprin or even a stiff drink to dull the pain and if he had to guess, there would be plenty more pain to come. Ardyn went to his pinky finger next and this time his resolve broke and he screamed so loudly that it echoed off the cement walls. He heard Ardyn laughing as his vision tunneled and went black.


	3. The Bite of the Whip

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The torture continues as Noctis begins to give up hope.

Noctis woke to blazing pain in his right hand and cried out. His head was pounding and he felt groggy and unsure of his surroundings. He felt a pinch on the inside of his elbow and tried to jerk away but the cuffs at his wrists stopped him.

“Keep still or I’ll just have to stick you again,” Ardyn’s voice said and Noctis’s memories came rushing back to him. He snapped his head up to find Ardyn hooking an IV into his vein.

“What…”Noctis tried to speak but his mouth felt like it was full of cotton.

“Adrenaline,” Ardyn said as if he knew what Noctis had been about to ask. “We can’t have you passing out every five minutes, now can we? Where’s the fun in that? And we’ve just started making progress.”

The effects of the adrenaline were immediate, and he instantly felt more alert. Unfortunately, the fog that had been blocking his mind had been muting some of the pain too, but now he felt the full force of it. The sensation made his heart race and his breathing accelerate. It was all he could do to keep from whining openly.

“I think you’ll like what I have planned next,” Ardyn said with a wicked smile and produced a gruesome looking scourge from inside his jacket. Noctis wondered distantly what other horrors he had hidden in there.

“I think it has a certain elegance to it. Pretty, don’t you think?”

Before Noctis realized he was supposed to answer, Ardyn smacked him hard in the mouth with the butt of the whip. His bottom lip split and blood spilled out of his mouth and down his chin and the front of his shirt.

“I assumed you’d learned your lesson about what happens when you’re asked a question and you ignore it, but apparently you’re more dense than I initially thought. Anyway, no time to waste! Let’s get to it,” Ardyn said and pulled a small knife out of his shirt pocket. Noctis flinched, wondering what torture he possibly had planned that he would need a scourge and a knife when Ardyn gently grabbed the collar of his tshirt between two fingers.

“I think you may be a little over dressed for the occasion,” Ardyn said, and sliced down the front and both sleeves of his shirt, leaving him naked from the waste up. He desperately wanted to cover himself, not because he necessarily cared about being shirtless but the way Ardyn’s eyes surveyed his bare torso made his skin crawl.

“What have we here?” Ardyn started at the hollow of his throat and ran the leather strips slowly down the length of his chest and stomach, stopping at the waist band of his pants. Noctis tried to flinch away from him but his restraints kept him from getting out of reach of the whip.

“You really should be better dressed. You’re not as scrawny as you look without those baggy clothes in the way. Perhaps I’ll leave this this part unsullied,” Ardyn said as he ran the leather between the ridges in his abdomen.

“Ah! Silly me, I keep getting sidetracked. You shouldn’t distract me like this,” Ardyn chuckled. Noctis shuddered and his cheeks burned with shame. He forgot the pain momentarily as rage flooded though him and he wanted to rip the sick fuck’s throat out with his teeth. Ardyn proceeded to circle around behind him and wasted no more time before he brought the first lash down across Noctis’s shoulders. Agony ripped across his back and he arched as far away from it as he could. His bloody lips were pulled back and rapid breaths hitched between his teeth. The second lash sliced across his lower back and he bit back a yelp. A third and a low groan stuck in his throat. The fourth lash sent his back up in flames and he lost control and cried out.

“Shit!” He screamed and tears spilled over his cheeks.

The fifth lash split the skin of his back open and sent blood soaking into the back of his pants and he screamed until his voice crackled.

“Stop, please!” He cried as the scourge ripped into his flesh a sixth time and he choked on another cry of agony.

“Now why would I do that?” Ardyn asked and brought the whip down a seventh and eighth time and reveled in the sounds that we’re escaping from Noctis’s throat.

“God…fuck!” Noctis screamed out as the ninth and tenth blow sliced across his back. He could hear his blood splattering on the walls and landing in droplets on the floor. He already felt the cold and dizzying effects of the blood loss. Ardyn must have realized that if he didn’t stop soon it would kill him because he circled around to face Noctis, cleaned the blood and bits of tattered flesh from the leather straps and put the scourge back in his coat pocket. Noctis was trembling all over and panting like he’d just finished running a marathon. Tears stained his cheeks and sweat soaked hair stuck to his face and neck.

“That’s the reaction I’ve been looking for!” Ardyn played a portion of the sound clip back to him. He heard the wet sounding slap of the whip, followed by his own cries of agony over and over and it made his insides twist. _Most of the citizens will probably enjoy listening to that._ He thought with despair. His father had been loved by the people of Lucis but he got the sense they didn’t really think he deserved the crown. He didn’t either most times, but he’d thought he’d get another decade or two to work on his “kingliness,” how to stand straight and speak in a commanding voice to a crowd of people, before he took the crown. He definitely hadn’t expected to take on the role of king before he turned twenty-one, and he didn’t see the people having much faith in him. They would probably be just as happy to put forward another ruler. There were plenty others in the line of succession, some who were probably much better suited for the role anyway.

“Why don’t you just kill me?” Noctis whispered without much hope.

“We’ve set your ransom high. If I killed you I wouldn’t get paid. Your people wouldn’t likely pay that kind of money for a corpse,” Ardyn said as though he was explaining a simple math problem to an eight-year-old.

“They won’t negotiate for me,” Noctis said desperately. “They’d be happy if I turned up dead.”

“Niffelheim seems to think otherwise, so I think I’ll wait and see how it all pans out.” Ardyn said. “However, all of this excitement has me exhausted. I think it’s time for me to turn in for the night. You should get some rest too. You won’t believe what I have planned for tomorrow!” Ardyn removed the adrenaline pump from Noctis’s arm and hooked up a bag of saline. He let that work for ten minutes or so while he cleaned up the rest of the broken glass from the bottle that he’d used to mutilate Noctis’s hand and gathered up the rest of his implements of torture.

“Oh dear, I just realized, we wouldn’t want this getting infected,” Ardyn said as he pulled another bottle of clear liquor from one of his many pockets. He took a swig before emptying the bottle down Noct’s back. He may as well have doused him in gasoline and lit a match. Noctis arched his back and screamed until he tasted blood at the back of his throat.

“Sorry, I bet that stung. Get some rest, I’ll see you bright and early!” Ardyn said and swept out of the room, closing the heavy door behind him and bolting it shut. Noctis heard something click and the shackles around his wrists and ankles opened. Noctis crumpled to the ground the second the tension left his arms and scrambled back into the corner of the room where he pulled his knees into his chest and wrapped his arms around them. He was shaking so hard that his teeth rattled in his head. He grabbed one of the scraps of his ruined shirt and tried to wipe some of the blood from his face and chest. One by one he pulled the shards of glass from his fingertips, which hurt almost as bad as they had going in. On the last one a violent shudder ripped through him and his gut wrenched, and he vomited again, crying out as the spasms jostled his injuries. He curled himself into a tight ball on the cold stone floor and shivered his way through the night, drifting in and out of consciousness.

  
  



	4. Like a Rat in a Cage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Plagued by the sound of his screams, Ignis struggles to find a way to Noct.

Two days or so had passed, and for the most part Ignis had been trapped in the dark. A small amount of water, barely enough to keep him alive, had been passed through a small sliding door near the floor. It was only then that he had enough light to get a brief sense of his surroundings. He’d circled the room with his hands pressed up against the walls several times. It was clear that he was in a small cement cell. There was a solid iron door that wouldn’t budge and a concrete slab that must have been intended for a bed, though it wasn’t much different from the concrete floor, but he guessed if there were rats it would suffice in keeping them from crawling over him while he slept. Sleep was not something that came to him though. After he initially woke up, he didn’t hear much of anything for the first several hours. He spent that time blindly and desperately searching the room for a way out. He didn’t know where they were or how they got there, but Noctis had been with him in his last memories before waking up in this cold and hard cell. He could only assume that wherever they were, Noctis was being held prisoner too. There was no motive to keep Ignis prisoner, other than he was with Noctis when they’d been taken. Not one to panic from the get-go, Ignis kept his usual calm demeanor for a while, until the screaming started. He would recognize those screams anywhere. He’d seen Noctis hurt before, Gladio had a tendency to take their training sessions a little too far sometimes, claiming he was “trying to prepare him for a real battle”, but the only times he’d ever heard him cry out like that had been in his sleep when horrible nightmares caused him to scream himself awake. They’d become less frequent as he’d gotten older, but they still happened occasionally. The amount of pain that Noctis could handle without showing any physical symptoms was sometimes unbelievable, so Ignis didn’t even want to think about what was being done to him right now to cause those sounds to come out of him. When they first started, Ignis lost it. He screamed until his voice disappeared, slamming himself against the door over and over until he dislocated his shoulder. Occasionally the screaming would stop for a while, but it always came back, louder, longer and more agonized than before. For some reason, Ignis thought he was meant to hear this. At some point, the screaming stopped for long enough that, exhausted from being up from 48 hours and beating his body against the iron door, he passed out on the floor in front of the door. He was awakened by the door opening when it hit him in his injured shoulder. A man-sized figure loomed over him, shrouded from head to toe in black.

“Get up,” a deep and clearly male voice commanded.

Ignis burst up from the ground, charging into the figure with his uninjured shoulder. The man, who at eye level was much larger than Ignis, clearly hadn’t been expecting this reaction because the impact sent him flat on his back. Ignis went down with him, straddling him around his hips and cracked him three times hard in the face with his fist before the man bucked and sent Ignis flying forward. He had to use his hands to catch himself on either side of the man’s head. This was just enough time for the man to pull out a stun gun and jam it into Ignis’s side, effectively ending his muscle function. It was as if the blows to the face hadn’t fazed him. He kicked Ignis hard in the gut before pinning his arms tight behind his back and securing them with cuffs. Ignis struggled futilely, his muscles still seized, and he struggled to regain his breath from the blow to his abdomen. The cloaked man jerked him violently to his feet, cracking his shoulder back into its socket. Ignis groaned, curling his shoulder up towards his ear when he felt the cold metal of a gun pressed to the base of his skull.

“Try anything like that again, and I’ll blow your fuckin’ brains through your mouth.”  
  



	5. A Witness to His Pain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ignis is forced to watch as Ardyn continues to torture Noctis

Hours passed. He didn’t know how many, the cell had no windows and no clock, no way of knowing the time of day or night. His only point of reference was the pain, which peaked and ebbed with every breath and shudder. After an indeterminable amount of time, the voice of Ardyn crackled over a speaker.

“Go to the shackles and put them around your wrists and ankles.”

“How about you go fuck yourself instead?” Noctis growled. He knew he would pay for this but he was so far beyond caring. Maybe if he pissed him off bad enough he would just kill him and end his suffering. Either way, he wasn’t going back to those chains without a fight.

“Noct, must you always be obstinate? One would think you’d have learned your lesson by now.”

The door opened and Noctis pushed himself off the floor as quickly as he could, ready to lunge when Ardyn strode casually into the room, followed by a shrouded man…and Ignis.

The man had Ignis cuffed and gagged, with a pistol pressed into the back of his head. Ignis met his eyes and Noctis could practically see his heart breaking when he saw the state he was in.

“Thank you, I’ll take it from here,” Ardyn said to the man as he took the gun. “Please close the door behind you on your way out.”

Ardyn kept the gun pressed to the base of Ignis’s skull and pushed him farther into the room.

“Let’s try this again, shall we?” Ardyn said as he pulled the hammer back on the pistol. “Get. In. The. Cuffs.”

That was it. The chink in his armor. He must have known this would be the only way he would get Noctis to cooperate. Ignis shook his head and yelled unintelligibly into the gag that was fastened around his head. Ardyn slapped him in the temple with the side of the gun, sending his glasses clattering to the ground and busting the lenses. Defeated, Noctis got to his feet and made his way to the cuffs, fastening first his ankles then one wrist. No matter what happened now, he had to be strong for Ignis. He had a feeling Ardyn was intending to put on quite a show for him, and he couldn’t let Ignis suffer with him. Ardyn shoved Ignis over to the wall and chained him there, facing the center of the room, making sure he could see everything that was about to happen. He kept the gun trained on him as he made his way to where Noctis stood and fastened the remaining cuff to his wrist. He stowed the gun in his jacket and returned to Ignis and ripped the gag from his mouth. Ignis was breathing hard, seething and struggling against his restraints.

“Noct!” he yelled as soon as his mouth was unobstructed.

“It’s ok, Iggy,” Noctis tried to keep his voice steady but he was already shaking. This was going to be bad. Noctis didn’t know why Ignis had been brought here to watch but he could only imagine it was because whatever Ardyn had planned for him today was going to be especially horrible.

As if Ardyn could read his mind, he said “You’re probably wondering why your advisor was brought here today. As you know, I’ve been given strict orders not to kill you. That’s where you’re going to come in,” He said, turning to Ignis.

“You see, what I have planned today could get a little intense. We had a long day yesterday and your little king is not at peak physical condition,” he indicated Noctis’s mangled hand, shredded back and busted ribs.

“If his heart stops, you’re going to bring him back,” Ardyn said. The blood drained from Ignis’s face and his pupils dilated fully.

“No,” Ignis said, bordering on hysteria. “Please, don’t-”

In a flash, Ardyn pulled an electric baton from his jacket and pressed it to Noctis’s hip. Every muscle in his body seized, his back arched and his teeth locked together, distorting the high-pitched whine that came from his throat. Ardyn pulled the baton away and Noctis fell limp against the chains. Ardyn circled him like a vulture toying idly with the baton while he decided where he would put it next. Ignis struggled harder against his restrains, growling in frustration as he watched Noctis hang from his wrists while sharp little cries hissed between his teeth with every gasp of air he took. Ardyn pressed the baton to his shoulder blade next and the electric currents ripped through him again, searing the shredded flesh and greatly exacerbating the pain of the shock. Noctis struggled with his rigid muscles to arch away from the current of electricity. He tried to scream but his throat was seized and his jaw locked and the sound came out as a strangled moan. When a maniacally laughing Ardyn finally pulled the baton a way his jaw and throat relaxed and an anguished cry ripped its way out from the pit of his stomach, the sound so awful it made Ignis want to cover his ears like a child.

“Please, stop!” Ignis cried. “I’ll tell you anything you want! Please don’t hurt him anymore!”

“What makes you think I need you to tell me anything?” Ardyn said with a deranged smile.

“Why, then? Why are you torturing him?”

“He’s being held for ransom. This is incentive for Lucis. Niffleheim doesn’t think footage of him being held at a five-star hotel will motivate them to act quickly.”

“Let me make a phone call,” Ignis begged. “I’m sure this is more than enough to convince them.”

“Oh, I’m sure it is. The glass I shoved under his fingernails probably would have done the trick. Now I’m simply enjoying myself.”

Ignis lost it, thrashing and jerking violently against the cuffs at his wrists, snarling profanities.

“You sick bastard! He’s just a kid!”

“Yes, I know. I like them young.”

Ignis felt his guts twist and saliva flooded his mouth and he leaned forward, gagging. Noctis, who had been hanging by his wrists with half-lidded and unfocused eyes, snapped back into reality as Ardyn’s arm moved to press the baton back into him. He struggled against the chains, twisting and writhing, desperately trying to avoid contact with the electricity.

“Get away from me!” Noctis shrieked and Ardyn drove his knee into his gut. He tried to double over but the chains at his wrists kept him from bending and Ardyn pressed the baton to the base of his sternum. Crushing waves of electricity seized his chest and he threw his head back and a cracked scream clawed its way out of his throat. He was vaguely aware of Ignis screaming too, but the sound was becoming distant, drowned out by his own tortured cries and Ardyn’s deranged laughter. He held the baton in place longer this time and Noctis felt like a dualhorn struck him in his chest. His heart sputtered and his lungs seized. He felt something warm trickling from his nose and ears. Ardyn pulled the baton away and Noctis gasped but his lungs refused to expand. His heart fluttered weakly a few more times, then stopped and he went limp, hanging from his wrists.


	6. Back From the Dead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ignis revives Noctis, and the two struggle to escape the clutches of the enemy.

Ignis stared in horror as every muscle in Noct’s body stood at attention and veins bulged in the sides of his neck and he screamed so loudly that it echoed off the cement walls and blood vessels burst in his eyes. Ardyn was unrelenting with the baton and soon Noctis started to shudder and blood ran from his nose and ears. Ardyn finally pulled the baton away but it was too late. Noctis gapped like a fish out of water for a few seconds before his eyes rolled back in his head and his knees buckled. Time stood still for a moment while Ignis tried to process what was happening. There was a roaring in his ears and his vision tunneled until Noctis was the only thing he could see, hanging motionless, bloody and broken.  
“No…”Ignis whispered. “No! Let me go! Let me get to him!” He screamed and wrenched at the bindings at his wrists.  
Ardyn clicked the button that unlocked the cuffs and Noctis crashed to the floor. He pulled the gun from his pocket and trained it on Ignis before he came to uncuff him.  
“Save him, or I’ll kill you. If you so much as flinch in my direction, I’ll kill you.”  
Ignis darted across the room the instant his arms were free. He pulled Noctis so that he was flat on his back. His hands shook and his breath came in rapid hitches. He placed his hands on Noct’s chest and started pumping firmly. He worked his mouth open and stuck two fingers in, moving his tongue out of the way before pinching his nose shut and pressing his mouth to Noct’s and blowing air into his lungs. He felt his chest expand and Ignis repeated this process several times but he was losing hope that he would be able to bring Noctis back from the dead.  
“Come back to me, please,” he begged, placing his trembling hands on either side of Noctis’s face as if he could force the life back into him. Tears blurred his vision and spilled over onto Noct’s face as he bent down to press his mouth back to his lips. He felt Noctis’s body twitched and a choked cry came from his mouth and his eyes fluttered.  
“Oh thank god,” Ignis whispered and pulled Noctis from the ground into his arms.  
“Ignis,” Noctis cried, trembling violently.  
“Drop him,” commanded Ardyn’s voice. Ignis could see from his peripheral vision that the gun was still trained on him. He slowly and carefully lowered him to the ground. Noctis was crying and clutching at his arms, trying to keep hold of him.  
“P-please…please Iggy. Don’t go,” he begged and Ignis swore he felt his heart crack into pieces.  
“It’s ok. I’m not going anywhere, I promise,” he whispered as he laid him carefully back on the floor, then quicker than a bolt of lightening he threw himself at Ardyn. The sound of the gunshot was deafening in the enclosed space and Ignis felt blinding pain spear through his right side, just above his hip. Ardyn crashed to the ground and Ignis landed on top, pinning his right arm to the ground with his knee and jamming his forearm into his windpipe. He punched him hard in the face several times but Ardyn was struggling wildly and he was losing his balance. Noctis scrambled to his hands and knees. He swiped for Ardyn’s coat, grabbing a fist full of fabric and pulling himself closer. His fingers brushed against something cold and hard and he grabbed blindly. Whatever it was, it would be better than nothing. Miraculously his fingers had closed around the crowbar that had been used to crack his ribs. He struggled to his feet and pulled the crowbar back over his head.  
“Ignis, move!” he yelled and Ignis rolled to the side without hesitation. Ardyn didn’t even have time to register the sharp end of he crowbar swiping through the air before cracked through his forehead. Noctis brought the crowbar back and swung it hard again and again, the effort shifted his ribs, causing him to cry out but he didn’t stop until Ardyn’s head was a bloody pulp of crushed bone and brain matter. Noctis collapsed, gagging and choking as his empty stomach tried in vain to produce something to vomit up. He turned back to Ignis, who was working the pistol from Ardyn’s fingers with one hand while he clutched his side with the other. As soon as the retching stopped, he tried to stand but his knees immediately gave out and he crashed back to the floor. Ignis crawled to him, still clutching his bleeding side. He wanted to put his arms around him so badly, but he was afraid to touch him. There was hardly an inch of his body that didn’t looked damaged in some way. Noctis pushed himself off the floor into a sitting position and slumped against him, trembling and breathing hard.  
“We have to get out of here,” Noctis panted.  
“I know,” Ignis gasped and pulled a bloody hand away from his side. He pulled up the hem of his shirt to find that the bullet had only grazed his side. As long as he could get the bleeding under control, he would be fine. He pulled his shirt off and tore a strip from the bottom, making a pad with the rest and pressed it to the wound, tying the strip around his waist to hold it in place. Noctis was in serious need of medical attention, but Ignis didn’t have his kit with him and there was nothing that he could do for him here. Ignis picked the gun up to examine it. It was a double action revolver with a six-chamber cylinder. He pushed the cylinder release and found one empty shell, the one that had shot him, but the other five were full. He didn’t know how many more captors were outside the cell but they would have to make every shot count. He quickly riffled through the rest of Ardyn’s pockets for more bullets but he found none. He grabbed the shock baton and shoved it down the back of his pants and fixed the scourge to his belt. Noctis grabbed the crowbar and tried to stand up again but as soon as he got to his feet the earth spun. Ignis grabbed him before he went crashing to the ground again and pulled one arm across his shoulder, gripping his belt to take some of the burden of standing from him.  
“Give me the crowbar and take the baton,” Ignis said. The adrenaline rush was wearing off, Noctis was going downhill quickly and he wouldn’t have to expend any energy with the baton.  
Noctis pulled the baton from Ignis’s pants and gave him the crowbar, which he hung from the opposite side of his belt from the whip.  
“Try not to make a sound,” Ignis instructed. “Best if we can sneak out without having to fight too many.”  
“I won’t argue,” Noctis gasped. Every sentence was a struggle and even though Ignis was supporting most of his weight the room was still spinning. Ignis pulled him towards the door and slowly inched it open.


	7. Running with the Dead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ignis and Noctis make their way through the corridors of the prison, but Noctis is running out of time.

Ignis peered out of the room, checking their surroundings. They were at the end of a long hallway, so there was only one direction that they could go. Since they had no idea where they were or how they got there, this was good news. The hallway was dimly lit by running lights along the floor and ceiling, and there were a few small recesses in the walls that could offer concealment if they needed it. For now, the coast was clear so Ignis pulled Noctis along and quietly closed the door behind them. They made it about halfway down the hall when they heard footsteps echoing from the hall perpendicular to the one they were in. Ignis pulled Noctis into one of the coves and signaled to him to be quiet. He peered out to see two armed guards had turned the corner, making their way casually down the hall towards them. Ignis pushed Noctis as far into the small recess as he could so that his back was pressed up against the wall and helped him slide down into a crouch. He had to think fast; they could hide and hope the guards didn’t notice them. It was a great plan if it worked, but they would be cornered if they were spotted and either killed on site or worse, imprisoned and tortured more. He was more than confident that he could shoot both of them and bring each one down with a single round, but the noise would likely bring more guards to investigate. How he wished he had his daggers so he could take them both out silently and from a safe distance. If he were to attack first and catch them off guard, bring one down before he knew what hit him, he might be able to subdue the second one. They were still far enough away that it was hard to tell how big they were, but Ignis was fast and well trained despite his slender build. He was injured and at a disadvantage, but this was the only viable option he could find. If he could restrain one of the guards, they might be able to use him to get out of this place.  
Ignis leaned in close enough to Noctis’s ear that he barely had to whisper for him to hear.  
“Listen, I’m going ambush them. I’ll take one down quickly and try to subdue the other. Stay here and keep quiet no matter what happens.”  
“No!” Noctis said too loudly and Ignis pressed his hand over his mouth. Noctis pulled his hand away and spoke more quietly this time  
“Please Iggy, you can’t. You’re hurt. You know what will happen if you get caught. I can’t let what happened to me happen to you too.” Noctis pleaded. He had Ignis by both wrists and he was shaking like a leaf in the wind.  
“Noct, this is the only way. If we have any chance of getting out of here, this is it. I need you to trust me. Can you do that?”  
The blood had drained from his face and his eyes were wide and terrified, but Noctis nodded. He did trust Ignis in most things, but he also knew that Ignis’s own life was not a priority to him. That if he thought sacrificing himself would save Noctis, he would do it without hesitation. Noctis could only hope that Ignis realized that if he died, he would either die where he sat or be captured again and tortured to death. He hoped for the former.  
The guards were close enough now that Ignis could see that one was quite a bit smaller than the other. Ignis was a couple of inches taller than the smallest but much thinner. He decided it would be best to try to take out the larger man and take his chances with the shorter one. It was a gamble either way. Himself, Noctis and even Prompto were all living proof that size only goes so far if you’ve had proper training.  
By this point, the guards had moved passed them and he gave Noctis one more glance and squeezed his leg reassuringly. He was out of time. They would reach the end of the hallway soon and have nowhere to go but back the way they came. Ignis pulled the crowbar from his belt and crept from the cove and Noctis inched to the front and peered around the corner. He skulked like a shadow until he got within striking distance then, quick as a viper he swung the crowbar into the base of the larger guard’s skull, severing his brain stem and killing him instantly. The other man swung around, obviously surprised and fumbled to unholster his gun. The crowbar was buried deep in the dead man’s skull and Ignis struggled to wrench it free but he wasn’t going to make it. The guard had the weapon unholstered and raised, trained on Ignis’s chest. Noctis flung himself from the cove and came down hard on the unsuspecting guard, ramming the baton into the side of his neck and working the pistol from his hand. Noctis half rolled and half fell off the guard and dragged himself to the wall and pushed himself upright. He was gasping for breath and had a shaky grip on the guard’s gun, but he managed to keep it raised and centered on his torso. This had given Ignis time to free the crowbar, draw the revolver and get a steady aim right between the guard’s eyes.  
“Don’t make a sound, or it’ll be the last thing you do. Don’t make me kill you with your own weapon,” Noctis said, his voice strong and commanding despite how mangled he looked. Ignis had a sudden surge of pride at how he was handling himself despite being so badly injured.  
Ignis moved to stand between Noctis and the guard, keeping the barrel of the revolver trained on his head. Without taking his eyes off the man, Ignis reached down and Noctis grabbed him by the arm and struggled to his feet. He leaned heavily against Ignis’s side but managed to stay upright and keep his aim on the guard.  
“I told you to stay put,” Ignis chastised.  
“You’re welcome,” Noctis whispered.  
“You’re going to take us out of here,” Ignis commanded, returning his full attention to the prone guard. The man opened his mouth to protest but Noctis cut him off, pulling the slide on the pistol and chambering a round.  
“What did I say!” Noctis growled and the man snapped his mouth shut.  
“Now get up and walk,” Ignis snapped. “We’ll be right behind you. If you try to run or yell for help, we’ll shoot, and I promise, we won’t miss.”  
The man pushed himself up to his feet, holding his hands up like he was surrendering. The look on his face was a mixture of shock, confusion and fear but it seemed like he was planning to cooperate for the time being. He led them down a series of empty corridors similar to the one they started in, occasionally passing another guard but they were ignored for the most part. They were stopped and questioned once by another guard, but the man explained that they had been released and he was escorting them out and the guard just shrugged and continued on his way.  
The longer they walked, the more often Noctis stumbled and it wasn’t long before Ignis was all but dragging him with his unoccupied arm. Noctis was trying his hardest not to be a burden but it was clear he couldn’t keep going. His hair was plastered to his face, sweat running freely down his neck and chest and his breathing was becoming more labored by the minute. Eventually, his legs gave out and he collapsed, wheezing breath and moaning quietly. The guard heard the struggle behind him and tried to flee but Ignis let Noctis drop and was on the guard in a flash, slapping him in the side of the head with the butt of the revolver before he grabbed him by the neck and shoved the barrel in his mouth.  
“You’re running out of time and I’m running out of patience,” Ignis growled. “I swear on the Six if he dies, I will kill you. Are we understood?”  
The guard whimpered into the barrel of the gun and nodded quickly. Ignis didn’t think he’d be having any more trouble from him. Aggression wasn’t his usual style, but he had the feeling brute force would be more effective than intelligent negotiations in this scenario.  
“Good,” Ignis said, more composed this time. “Now pick him up.”  
The guard looked bewildered and Noctis was too out of it to protest.  
“Do it now and move with a purpose. Your life is on the line here as well,” Ignis reminded him.  
The guard obeyed and pulled Noct into his arms. Ignis’s guts twisted. This was the last thing he wanted but there was no way he could carry him and keep an aim on the guard. Ignis moved close to the man and pressed the muzzle of the revolver into the small of his back, so that if they passed anyone else the weapon would be hidden and it would look like he was simply being escorted. Noctis was shivering and moaning incoherently, his head lolling against the guard’s shoulder. Finally, they came to a set of iron double doors and Ignis snatched the set of keys from the guard’s belt and unlocked them.  
“Keep going,” Ignis said. “One hundred yards out and then I’ll let you go.”  
Outside it was dark, probably two in the morning based off the position of the moon. It was flat grassland with the occasional tree, but there wasn’t much else around. They walked the length of a football field and came to a tree with a wide trunk.  
“Now set him down, carefully, then give me your phone and turn around and start walking,” Ignis instructed.  
The guard laid Noctis on the grass with his back resting against the trunk of the tree and handed Ignis his phone, then turned. Before the man knew what hit him, Ignis grabbed the crowbar from his belt and smashed it into the guard’s temple. The man collapsed and Ignis pulled out the phone and dialed.  
“Hello?” Gladio’s concerned voice answered on the second ring.  
“Gladio,” Ignis gasped and relief flooded through him.  
“Ignis?” Gladio exclaimed. “Where the fuck are you? Are you ok?”  
“No,” Ignis quickly. “Ardyn compromised us. We were captured and taken to a Niff base. I’m not sure where.”  
Ignis described their surroundings. Gladio was a master of terrain and tracking. If anyone could find them based off a description of the land, he could. Ignis could hear Prompto speaking frantically in the background while Gladio told him several times to shut up so he could listen.  
“That sounds like the Tollhends Stronghold,” Gladio said. “We’re on our way.”  
“How long?” Ignis asked desperately. “He’s running out of time…”  
“An hour,” Gladio answered. It should take a lot longer than that, but he had the car going as fast as he could. “Keep him going, Specs. If anyone can do it, you can. I’ll be there soon.”  
Ignis heard the engine accelerate and the line went dead. He flashed back to the guard, who was still sprawled out and motionless on the grass a few feet away. Though he hadn’t been actively trying to kill him, Ignis didn’t know if he was dead. If he wasn’t, Ignis had no strong desire to finish the job. He’d seen more than enough brutality in the past two days to last several lifetimes, but he didn’t want to be here when and if he woke up. Ignis pulled Noctis across his shoulders as gently as he could but pained whines still came from his mouth as Ignis got him situated and started moving. He walked for about a mile along the road that led to the stronghold and by that time Noctis was crying out with almost every step and the lash marks on his back had broken open, soaking them both in blood. Ignis found another tree close enough to the road that he could spot Prompto and Gladio but far enough away that they wouldn’t be seen unless they were being looked for. He was for once grateful for the cover of darkness. For whatever reason, maybe the proximity to the spotlights of the stronghold, the daemons were keeping their distance. He was also grateful that they had decided to risk their lives in the Crestholm Channels for those upgraded headlights last week, it would give Gladio and Prompto quick and safe passage.  
Ignis slid Noctis off his shoulders as carefully as he could, laying him on his right side. His lips were pulled back and he was shaking hard, pained cries hissing between his teeth. Ignis’s heart sank. He put his hand on the side of his neck a brushed his thumb over his cheekbone.  
“Please…Just hang on a little longer,” He whispered, fighting back tears.  
“Ig-“ Noctis’s words stuck in his throat with a tortured cry. “I cant…fuck, it hurts…”  
“You have to,” Ignis begged, his hands moved to either side of Noct’s face and he was on the verge of hysteria.  
“Please. For me. Gladio and Prompto will be here soon and I’ll be able to make it stop. Just stay with me, please…” Tears broke the plane of his vision.  
Noctis’s back arched and he convulsed, blood seeped from the corners of his lips and he gasped for breath, eyes wide and panicked, fingers clawing helplessly into the ground.  
“’m sorry, Specs,” he whispered, then went limp, glassy eyes staring out into nothing.


	8. Resurrection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ignis, Gladio and Prompto scramble to bring their king back from the dead.

Ignis felt the world shift beneath him and his stomach turned inside out. He shook his head, trying to clear it, to make sense of what he was seeing. With numb fingers he grabbed Noctis by the tops of his arms and shook him. When Noctis didn’t respond he squeezed him harder, hard enough that it should have hurt and shook him again. His head lolled from side to side and blood spilled from his mouth, which hung slightly open.  
“Noct?” He mouthed, but all that came out was a dry croak.  
“Noct!” He cried, forcing sound out of his throat and he shook the unresponsive man beneath him again, harder than before.  
Ignis pressed his fists into his temples and closed his eyes, breathing deep, trying to stop the world from spinning and regain his focus.  
This isn’t happening. Get control. This isn’t happening. He’s going to be fine. You need to help him.  
Ignis opened his eyes and pressed his ear to Noctis’s chest. He was met with empty and hollow nothingness. He pressed his fingers to his neck and felt only still, clammy flesh. His hands started shaking and he could feel his pulse in his eyes.  
“No, no, no,” he whispered.  
“NO!” He screamed, his voice resonating through the darkness.  
He put his hands on Noct’s chest and started doing compressions. He breathed air into his lungs, and they expanded but his lips had turned cold and unyielding, and the air immediately rushed out of his body. Ignis repeated this cycle furiously for what felt like eternity and eventually he’d turned to slamming his fist into Noctis’s chest, trying and failing to beat the life back into his motionless heart. Somewhere in the distance, he heard the purr of an engine and the screech of tires coming to an abrupt stop. He pressed his mouth back to Noctis’s. He vaguely noticed that his lips were blue. He forced his own air into him and felt his body expand but it was resisting more with every breath as the blood thickened in his veins and his muscles turned rigid. A rush of black clothing and blond hair moved him aside and wiry arms wrapped around him. He felt like the scene before him was being played through cracked glass. Gladio’s imposing frame hovered over the smaller and fragile looking corpse of what had once been the crowned King of Lucis.  
There was a sound of a breaking glass and fire erupted, forming a swirling red halo around Noctis’s head. His fingers twitched and panicked eyes darted from side to side as his chest expanded with breath. A choked cry came from his throat as he gasped in air and his veins contracted painfully as new blood pumped through them. He fingers clawed into the earth underneath him and a high-pitched keen came from his mouth. Ignis leaned over, reaching desperately but Prompto’s arms formed a cage around him. Somewhere, miles away, Prompto’s voice spoke calming words to him but his brain had lost the ability to process them. There was a roaring in his ears and a film of grey clouded his vision before the ground swirled and rushed up to meet him.  
Ignis woke to the greyish light of dawn. The air had a damp chill and the ground was hard beneath his back but there was a layer of fabric between him and the earth. A sharp tugging above his hip grounded him and he reflexively tried to pull away from it. A hand, large and warm, pressed against his bare chest and a gravely voice instructed him to try to keep still. He followed the source of the voice upwards and his eyes focused on Gladio.  
“Wh-What?...” Ignis stuttered. He looked down to the sharp tugging at his side and saw a needle and thread being pulled through a gash above his right hip. Memories of the last few days slammed back into him and he gasped, jerking upright and gripping painfully onto Gladio’s bicep.  
“Hey! Calm down, Iggy. Be still. Everything’s ok,” Gladio said and gently pushed him back down.  
“Noctis,” Ignis whispered, eyes sweeping for him.  
“He’s right there,” Gladio glanced up.  
Noctis was laid out on his stomach a few feet away. His arms were curled and pressed to his sides so that his forearms rested on the ground and his hands balled into tight fists. Veins stood out in his arms and neck and he shuddered, sharp cries working their way between gritted teeth. Prompto was on his knees beside him, pulling soiled bandages from his lacerated back. He stopped frequently to apologize, running his fingers through Noctis’s sweat soaked hair and murmuring reassuring words. Dread, shame and self-loathing gripped Ignis’s chest, suffocating him.  
Good, Ignis thought. Let me die. I let this happen. It wouldn’t be anything I don’t deserve.  
“He died…” Ignis gasped and tears spilled over. “Gladio, I let him die…” his words cut off with a choked sob.  
“You kept him alive,” Gladio said, more gently than he ever spoke. “If you wouldn’t have been so persistent, he would have been too far gone by the time we got there for the Phoenix Down to work.”  
The sound of Noctis’s pained cry sent another wave of despair through him and he growled in a mixture of anger, pain and frustration.  
“Hey,” Gladio placed a hand on his shoulder. “He’s going to be ok. It’s going to take a few weeks, but he’ll get better. Now if you’ll calm the fuck down and let me finish stitching your side shut, we could really use your help. He needs blood and his back is beyond my abilities as a seamstress.”  
Ignis consented, locking his teeth together and digging his nails into his palms while Gladio put the last few sutures in his wound and applied a field dressing. He helped him sit up, steadying him while he waited for the earth to settle and helped him pull a shirt over his head. Gladio pulled Ignis to his feet when Prompto, who had been hovering over Noctis, started to lose it.  
“I can’t get the bleeding to stop,” he stammered. “I’m sorry Ignis. I remember everything you taught me, but it just won’t stop…”  
Ignis put a hand on Prompto’s shoulder and stopped him before he went into needless hysterics. He would need all hands on deck for what came next.  
“You did well, Prompto, you have nothing to apologize for.”  
Prompto’s eyes were rimmed with red but he was holding off the tears for now. Ignis asked him to put some water on to boil, more to distract him than out of actual need. Gladio, who didn’t need to be told that Ignis needed a moment alone with Noctis, walked several paces away and started assembling medical supplies. Ignis knelt in front of Noctis and reached for his hand. Noctis grabbed it and hung on tight. He lifted his head so he could look at Ignis. Noct was white as paper, sweat and dirt streaked his face and neck, there were deep purple hollows under his eyes, and his face was a mask of pure misery but he was alive and for that, Ignis was grateful.  
“I can’t tell you how sorry I am,” Ignis said in a voice that barely reached a whisper.  
“It’s not your fault,” Noctis gritted out. “Are you ok?”  
“Don’t worry about me, Highness,” he said, then sighed. “I thought you were dead…”  
“Think I was for a minute,” Noctis said with a choked laugh. “Can’t get rid of me that easy though.”  
“I should hope not,” Ignis replied with a small smile, then took a deep breath. “Listen, the lacerations on your back are still bleeding badly. I’m so sorry, but I’m going to have to sew them closed”  
Noctis swallowed thickly and screwed his eyes shut.  
“Can’t you just use a potion?” he asked desperately.  
“Believe me, I wish I could, but the potions rely on your magic to work, and you’re still not generating any.” Ignis explained.  
It was the first thing Gladio had tried and it had been about as effective as water.  
“’kay”, Noctis said with a shaky breath.  
“Gladio and Prompto are going to help you, but I need you to keep as still as you can so I don’t accidently hurt you worse.”  
Ignis called Prompto and Gladio over with bandages, hot water and his stitching kit. He instructed Prompto on how to hold the shredded tissue in place while Gladio got to his knees by Noctis’s head and placed his hands on his shoulders. Ignis surveyed his map of tattered flesh and his heart sank. He didn’t even know where to start, it seemed like this nightmare would never end. He decided starting at the top left of his back and working his way to the right and down, like reading a book was as good a plan as any. Noctis was able to keep relatively still and quiet for a while but by thirty minutes into the procedure he was thrashing and screaming, begging them to stop. His hand shot out, grasping at anything he could get a hold of and he found the fabric of Gladio’s shirt, gripping it so tight that it started to tear. Prompto was openly sobbing, blubbering soothing words to try to keep Noctis calm but the words didn’t seem to reach him. Ignis wished desperately that he would pass out, and after an hour or so he finally did. The process took about three hours, longer than Ignis had hoped, because Noctis desperately needed blood.  
Ignis hooked a catheter needle into Gladio’s arm and drew two pints of blood into an IV bag. He started to hook one into himself but Gladio stopped him.  
“You go shot. You’ve lost blood too. If this isn’t enough you can take more from me,” Gladio said. He was so large he could get away with giving more blood than the average person.  
Prompto offered, but he didn’t know his blood type. Ignis and Gladio were both blood matches with Noctis. This wasn’t just by chance, either. It was a requirement that the King’s crownsguard have either the same blood type or a suitable match. Ignis hooked the IV into Noctis’s arm and started the transfusion. After about an hour the color started returning to his skin and his breathing evened out. Ignis pulled his blood-soaked jeans off and redressed him in clean clothes.  
When he woke it was midafternoon and the sun was high and warm, the first pleasant thing he’d felt in what seemed like years. He was weak and still in pain but it was at least manageable now. He did feel very dehydrated though; his head hurt, his lips were dry and cracked and his throat felt like sandpaper. Ignis had pulled up a chair beside him and was flipping through a magazine when he noticed Noct stirring and got to his knees, touching a hand to the young man’s forehead.  
“How are you feeling?” Ignis asked.  
“Like someone gave me a massage with a cheese grater,” Noctis answered. “I’m really thirsty.”  
Ignis reached for a canteen and Noctis pushed himself up on his elbows, groaning when the movement pulled at the stitches in his back and set his ribs ablaze. Ignis helped him into a sitting position and steadied him while he drank.  
“Where’s Prompto and Gladio?” Noctis asked, looking around the campsite.  
“They’re loading the car,” Ignis replied. “The plan was to let you sleep as long as possible then head back to Lestallum. We all agree you’ve earned a couple of days in a real bed.”  
“I think that’s the best idea any of you have ever had,” Noctis said with a small laugh, then he laid back and waited for the others, enjoying the feeling of the sunshine after spending so much time in the cold and dark.


End file.
